Thursday, September 11, 2008

How Big is The Phillies Series?

146 games down, 16 to go.

While the Brewers are still 4.5 games behind the Cubs in the divisional race, the Crew is currently in the driver's seat of the wildcard race. With a 4 game lead on the Astros and the Phillies and a 4.5 game lead on the Cardinals, even a mediocre finish should be enough propel the Brewers to their first post season birth in 26 years. But the schedule gets pretty rough for the Brewers here on out, as they start a four game series with Philadelphia tonight.

How important is this series? As it turns out, pretty darn important. First, here are my estimates of the Brewer post season odds as they currently stand:

Division: 7.5%Wildcard: 73.8%Total: 81.3%

If those look suspiciously similar to Baseball Prospectus's odds, they should, as I used their WP3 for each team's true collective talent. It's not the best stat but it's the best publicly available one that I am aware of. Now, here are the odds of Brewers reaching the post season, based on every possible outcome of this series:Brewer Wins DIV/WC/TOT4 Wins: 19.6/78.8/98.43 Wins: 12.0/83.4/95.42 Wins: 6.8/80.6/87.41 Win: 3.7/64.8/68.50 Wins: 1.6/38.7/40.3

A sweep either way and things dramatically change! The chance of either team sweeping is pretty low, though, so let's concentrate on the middle three possibilities. The most likely scenario is that the Brewers and the Phillies simply split the series, where the Brewers would enjoy a 6% bump in their playoff odds. The Brewers win only one and they still have a 2 in 3 shot at the playoffs. How about the Brewers win 3 and just about lock up that playoff birth? Please?

Alright, I won't be greedy. A split would be just fine with me. With only 12 games to go, it would be tough for the other wildcard hopefuls to catch the Crew in that scenario.